Not applicable.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to electronic calendaring methods and in particular to an improved method for retrieving calendar-related information from a network for use in a portable data processing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The prior art has disclosed a number and variety of interactive electronic calendaring systems and methods. The objective of all of these systems is primarily to assist the person who, for a number of different reasons, maintains a calendar of future events containing various information about the event at entry points on the calendar which relate to the time of the event.
The increase of personal computers and intelligent workstations in recent years has made it possible for calendar owners to establish and maintain their calendars on these interactive type data processing systems.
Two general types of interactive electronic calendaring systems have thus evolved in the art. In one type of calendaring system, the owner of the calendar is generally also the user of the workstation and that workstation is generally not a part of a larger network.
Generally, in these types of systems, the calendar functions involve presenting a screen to the user representing a day calendar divided into a number of time periods or time slots. Each period is capable of displaying a limited amount of text that the user enters. In some systems, the day calendar can scroll vertically to present more time periods to the user or horizontally to present longer text entries. The operator can generally xe2x80x9cpagexe2x80x9d forward or backward and, in most arrangements, can display a requested date. These calendaring arrangements generally do not limit the type of event that is calendared nor the terminology employed at any of the entry points and, to that extent, function in the same manner as conventional manual calendars or appointment books. The electronic calendaring method and systems do have an advantage over the prior art manual calendaring of events in that the user generally has the ability to scan a time span involving a large number of days and identify calendared events quite rapidly.
Among the most common entries in calendars are travel plans. Such entries typically identify an airline, flight number, destination and departure date and time. However, that information may change and hence time must be spent confirming the information. Even with modern electronic calendars that is a time-consuming task because the most recent information is kept at a remote location that must be periodically assessed via a network. Thus, if the calendar user wishes to find the status of the flight, he or she can connect to the Internet and type in the URL of the airline that is being flown, and enter the flight number being taken and the current status is shown.
If the calendar owner wishes to find other information about the final destination, such as the weather or suggested restaurants, this information can also be found by surfing the Internet at various sites that contain this type of information. In order to perform these searches, the calendar owner must be connected to the Internet and they must find the are where the information resides, dealing with the normal Internet delays. Thus, there is a need for a method of automating this type of information request, providing it proactively and without having the user xe2x80x9csurfingxe2x80x9d the Internet for the information.
Briefly, a system according to the invention involves two primary elements. A tagged xe2x80x9clanguagexe2x80x9d to be used in the calendar entry, and an agent works based on a user profile that is defined during setup. The agent periodically scans the calendar entries for the tags, and then fetches information from a network, such as the Internet, at a predetermined interval or intervals before the tagged event. The user profile defines the method of delivering information to the user. This system may use wireless communication to the user""s communication device (laptop or handheld computing device such as Palm Pilot or Windows CE). Some wireless communication alternatives are a pager and an SMS capable phone. When the information has been fetched, it may be sent via E-Mail or other communication alternative to the pager or SMS phone, where the user receives it.